Rock Mechanics Support for the Dannemora Mine (2014)
The Dannemora mine has been in production since (at least) 1481 until its first closure in 1992. The fact that the mine is very old, but also has been closed for some time, has influenced the infrastructure and mine planning during the earlier era of mining.
Laver Rock Mechanics Pre-Feasibility Study (2013)
Boliden is investigating the Laver low-grade copper deposit for potential future mining. The old Laver deposit was discovered in the 1930s, and was operated between 1938 and 1946. Mining was primarily conducted as small-scale underground mining, but a small open pit was also in operation at that time. The currently investigated deposit is of larger scale and with lower grades. Investigations have been on-going since 2008, including geophysical investigations, outcrop mapping, sampling of drill cuttings, and diamond core drilling. The mineralization is not defined at depth and/or in strike extension.
Improved Blasting through Precise Initiation (2013)
Using blasting caps with electronic delay units, and programmable delay times down to 1 ms, it has become possible to employ wave superposition in rock blasting. It has been hypothesized that fragmentation is improved in areas between blastholes where the tensile waves meet, overlap and interact. An improved fragmentation can, in turn, result in reduced costs for both blasting and transportation of the blasted rock, improved environmental aspects, and reductions in energy consumption during crushing and grinding of the blasted rock, as well as improved metal recovery. In this project, the above hypothesis was further studied in conjunction with developing computational tools for simulation of blasting with electronic programmable delay caps.
Stress Modeling Malmberget (2013)
LKAB plans to increase the production in Malmberget mine to 20 million metric tons of iron ore per year. The objective of this work was to create a detailed model of all orebodies to study the stress situation with continued ore production at depth.
Long Term Cavern Stability of the SFR Facility (2012)
A numerical analysis was conducted to assess the long term stability of the rock caverns BMA and BLA for the final repository of low and middle level nuclear waste at the SFR facility in Forsmark, Sweden. The objective was to analyze if there exists a long term risk for an ongoing loosening of the rock mass up to the surface due to degradation and weathering of the rock mass adjacent to the walls of the rock caverns.
Norra Länken 3D Stability Analysis (2012)
The Northern Link (Norra Länken) will be part of a major road system surrounding the Stockholm metropolitan area. As part of the design work for this project, Itasca Consultants AB and Itasca Consultants S.A.S. has performed a three-dimensional numerical study to analyze of the effect of a large surface load being applied on top of a tunnel intersection with low (4 m) rock cover. The analyses were performed using FLAC3D, and the model was constructed with KUBRIX Geo mesh generator using in conjunction with the Rhino CAD package.
Numerical Modeling of Mining Sequences and Seismicity (2012)
Mining-induced seismicity is one of the most serious rock mechanics problems in sublevel caving in the LKAB mine in Kiruna.
System Design of Underground Facility for Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage (2012)
The design of the final nuclear repository design has been initiated by SKB and as a first step the system design of the underground facility has been executed.